Author's Note: No, Kay has not been forgotten. Thanks Midnight Lady – You pointed out some very valid structural issues. I think I was too eager to get this chapter out. Revamped, hopefully to your satisfaction.

Fallout

Kay returned from the store with toothpaste, toothbrushes, a couple of cheap shirts, a package of underwear, and deodorant. We exchanged looks as we sorted out our necessities.

"I never knew that we wore the same size panties." I mused.

"And I will never use that information ever again in my lifetime." She shot back.

"Panties?"

I jumped and looked over my shoulder at Alucinor. With a yelp I swept all of the things off of the table back into the bag. "Get out of here! This is private!"

He frowned in confusion. "They're just undergarments."

I didn't bother replying and simply shoved him bodily out of the kitchen. Once he was out of sight, I huffed, "It's the principle of the thing!"

Kay smirked at me. "You like him."

"Kay, he's a creature not even from this world."

"So, it never stopped Sarah. Well, perhaps it did, but they seem to want to work things out."

"They need to get over themselves first."

Kay grabbed her toothbrush out of my bag. "But you do like him."

I sighed. "He said he was in love with me."

She paused and stared wide-eyed at me. "Whoa! Really? Just like that? But you just met!"

I slumped into a chair, wary of the subject of our conversation being one room away. "But he's been keeping tabs on me for years. Just like Jareth has on Sarah."

Kay pondered the information for a moment. "Well, if it was the king-dude, I'd say no way. But this guy, Alucinor, seems rather on the level. I like him. You should go with it."

Pursing my lips, I twisted my ring; the Celtic knot work on my right hand had left a tan line. "How did you know that Bryan was a good choice?"

She smiled. "Really he just wouldn't leave me alone till I said yes. Before he asked me out I thought he was just some jock who was pretending to know art just to get in my pants. Then I started really talking to him and found out he was just an awesome guy."

"And I'm not going to be going anywhere till Mia says yes." Alucinor spoke up from the doorway. I felt my face heat up and I couldn't look at him.

Kay grinned. "Congratulations, I haven't seen her get so flustered in… forever."

I mock-glared at my friend. "I hate you." I grabbed my bag and headed up to the guest bedroom. Alucinor started to follow, but I cut him off at the stairs. "Look, you have me at a serious disadvantage. How can I have a normal relationship with you, when you 'fess up right at the start and I just met you today?"

He blinked. "The fact that you put normal and relationship in the same sentence when dealing with a subject of the Underworld is clear indication that you are still in doubt."

"Of course I'm in doubt, but that doesn't mean I won't try to understand what's going on. I mean," I began ranting out loud, "This was all just a story, a play, or a dream of one person. It wasn't supposed to be true! Can't they go mess up their own lives without dragging me into it? I was fine with the life I had. It wasn't great, but it was mine. What gives that masochistic, chauvinist the right to drop in and think he's god?"

"Watch your tongue, dear Mia, or I will remove it." Jareth's voice filled the stairway.

"Screw you, Jareth!" I stomped my foot. Alucinor's face went blank in shock.

In a flash of light I found myself pinned to the wall in an echo of two days before. "Damn you woman! You try my patience even more than Sarah. Perhaps you need to be taught a lesson." Jareth appeared in midnight blue and black, a feathered cape hanging from his shoulders.

I sneered. "Is this how you'll solve your problems? Whenever anyone ruffles your feathers, you'll just threaten to cut out their tongue or pin them to the wall? You can't do that to someone you claim to love and I sure as hell won't let you do it to me without getting something in return."

Jareth sneered. "What will you do, spit on me?"

I made a show of hacking up a wad of spit and his eyes narrowed. I knew I was seriously toeing the line and stopped. "What will you do if she gets angry enough to do the same? Will you threaten her?"

He hesitated, hand raised to deal some sort of punishment to me. From behind him spoke Kay, her arms crossed. "She's right. What you're about to do can be labeled as abusive. You should seek anger management. My boyfriend and I fight, but we never are physical about it. We separate for a while to cool off, and then settle things as reasonably as possible. You have to respect a different opinion."

He continued to hold me against the wall as he growled, "You say I need to act out of respect. But respect is earned, and you show none to me. Why then, should I not return the courtesy?"

"Because life isn't fair." I squirmed against his invisible hold. "Get over it!"

Alucinor bowed to his king. "She is correct, majesty. To learn to give way, even when you do not wish to, in honor and respect of your partner, is a strong gesture of love." He edged towards me. "Forgive me, sire, but to do harm to this mortal is not the right action. She only speaks out of concern." He shot me a look. "Though her methods are questionable."

Jareth raised an eyebrow at his subject. "I do not believe you have ever said anything to oppose me in the past hundred years."

"No, majesty, but you have never been in love before either. I only wish to assist."

The sight of Alucinor groveling in front of such an arrogant SOB made me burn. Before I could say anything, the dream gatherer gave me a warning shake of his head. Jareth sighed and released me with a flick of his fingers. "I tend to forget that your attitude is the reason I asked you to help me. It is also the reason you almost have yourself sentenced to an oubliette nearly daily." He turned to Alucinor. "Teach her to curb that tongue of hers."

"Teach me my a-" Alucinor clapped his hand over my mouth and merely nodded. Jareth gave me one final glare before turning down the stairs.

Kay was still standing in the goblin king's path. For a moment they faced one another in a stalemate until the red haired woman stepped back. He walked out the front door like any human being.

I collapsed on the stairs and groaned, closing my eyes in exasperation. When Alucinor slipped behind me to rub my shoulders, I stiffened but didn't turn.

"Mia, honey, I know what you're trying to do, but I really think you're going about it all the wrong way."

I cracked an eye open to look up at my friend. "How's that?"

"I don't blame you for wanting to knock his ego down a peg or two, but I don't think making him angry all the time to get him to pay attention is a healthy way to do it."

"Healthy for him, or healthy for me?" I tried to joke.

"Both." Kay didn't smile. "Some things they'll have to figure out on their own. You can't just tell them it's a math problem – that one and one make two. I have a feeling that most of the time it'll end up being three."

Alucinor's fingers were finding some very interesting knots in my shoulders and I began zoning out. "Yeah, well, he wanted help, and I'm trying to give it."

Kay sighed, "Well, you know the saying 'speak softly and carry a big stick'."

I snorted. "Well I think he's emotionally deaf, so all I can use is a big stick."

Kay echoed my tone. "And you're such an expert of your own? Alucinor has you right where he wants you, and you don't even realize it."

"Huh?" I blinked. Kay had been walking away as she spoke, leaving me to melt under the strong fingers of the dream gatherer who leaned in next to my right ear.

"Mia, tonight you will have to watch yourself. The dream world will be created solely for the king, and Lady Sarah. You cannot interfere, as much as you may want to."

My brain slowly turning to mush, I asked, "So if it's all for them, then why should I even go?"

His voice was warm and full of laughter. "Because you'll find a way – your curiosity is too great for you not to worm your way in, no matter how many barriers I put up."

We sat in silence for a moment, before a question floated to the surface of my contentment. "Alucinor, you gather dreams, do you take nightmares too?"

His hands paused. "Sometimes, but there is another gatherer who's primary duty is to take nightmares."

"Where do they go?"

"The Labyrinth uses them, it does not care what kind of dream it is, only the power that is within them."

"So they make up the scary side."

"You could say so."

"Oh." I finally gave in to the temptation of the warm body behind me, and leaned back. "Well, I know I'll have a bad dream eventually. 'Least I have you here to take care of it." I drifted off.

The air was warm and dry, tugging strands of my hair to brush across my face. The ground gave off a warm brown glow beneath my feet, but there was no sign of life. Bare brown rocks gave a lunar feel to the landscape. A black sky overhead added to the bleakness. I was alone. At first the thought didn't bother me, I simply began to walk, bare feet raising small clouds of dust. Then I notice that my footprints were black against the glowing earth. The darkness began to bleed together behind me, moving and writhing like a snake. My heart began to pound with fear and I tried to run. The shadows ran with me, grabbing at my ankles and pulling me back. It felt like I was running in glue as my feet began to sink.

"No! No! No!" I began chanting. Then I fell, the blackness oozing out from beneath me, then reaching up and dragging me down. I sank.

Then everything shifted. I heard voices, but no words. Hands were holding me, covering my eyes, and restraining any movement. Then like a radio dial, the sound came into focus – a man and a woman talking.

"You keep saying these things, but you don't understand them."

"But I am saying them. Things haven't changed."

"You're wrong. Things have changed – I've changed, and whether you're willing to admit it or not, you've changed too. You cannot stop time."

"But I can re-order it."

I could feel the hands starting to loosen their grip and I began to slid downwards.

"To what end, Jareth? You cannot simply rewind time to erase your mistakes. How can you learn from them?"

"Who wants to learn from pain?"

"Pain makes us stronger, and makes us softer. We understand the world we live in better, and we can learn to live with it."

"I think you owe me more than just words, Sarah."

I heard a sigh and the hands released me as my feet touched the bottom of whatever I had been descending. It was cold, but not damp. I started to move forward, toward the voices, but something held me back yet again. I looked up to see Kay, standing alone, staring into the darkness. I opened my mouth but she turned to face me with eyes so full of anger that I couldn't move.

"Is that how it is? We will always owe something – You will be bitter that I won, I will be bitter that you hold that against me."

I could see them now, Sarah and Jareth standing on a white marble dance floor, surrounded by stairs that zigzagged in every direction - the Escher room. The goblin king was wearing an elaborate white cloak, spines arching up and over his shoulders into the illusion of a crown. A ruffled white shirt muffled the glint of his medallion against his chest. Sarah wore a pale blue ball gown, her dark hair piled elegantly on top of her head. The dress clung to her body, before gathering and falling in a waterfall in the back. They were beautiful together, one so pale and sharp, the other, dark and graceful.

You can't compete. I thought to myself - not that I have even seriously hoped to vie for attention.

"We are still children," Sarah reached up to trace the king's face. "I just realized that."

Jareth's voice was stiff. "I am no child."

Her hand trailed down to the hidden pendant. "Your heart is, and so is mine. I love you, Jareth." She stepped back. "I love you, but I cannot stay. I am not what you think I am, and I cannot change."

"Why?"

"If I change, or you change, then we are not who we are. How can you love something false? How could I?"

Jareth tried to follow her retreat, but she matched him step for step. He finally stopped, poised on the edge of something only the two of them could see. "Your eyes can be so cruel." He whispered.

Sarah smiled, lips trembling. "I am sorry. If life is a circle, perhaps we will meet again. And perhaps then, we will have grown a little more."

She took one step forward to press her mouth against his, which he hungrily took. I turned my head, not wanting to witness their pain. Kay was wiping her eyes, gave me a small smile of her own, and vanished into the surrounding darkness. Somehow I knew that she had gone home.

"Jareth"

I looked back at the couple. Sarah was tightly clutched in the goblin king's arms, but she was leaning away.

"You have no power over me."

In the blink of an eye, she was gone.

The sound that I heard next was one that would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. Raw pain was screamed to the corners of the Labyrinth as Jareth threw back his head and loosed his anguish. And it went on, and on, and on.

I threw myself out of sleep so violently that I fell out of bed. Clutching my hands over my ears, I tried to block out the echo, barely registering that I had woken back in my apartment. My heart was pounding, bleeding in sympathy until I was forced to simply curl up on the floor and sob.

It was wrong, it was all so wrong. The story was supposed to be happy. There was supposed to be a victor, a love that would overcome all obstacles. How could it end like that?

Maybe Kay had been right. Maybe I had been too selfish. Maybe… "It's all my fault."

"You're right and wrong, Mia." I felt Alucinor settle on the floor next to me and I looked at him through a watery haze of tears. He gently brushed a finger against my cheek. "You were right in all the ideas, but you were wrong in the actions. You told Jareth to change, but in doing so you told him to cease being what he was. You said to be honest, but the result would have been dishonesty. They have love, even as flawed as it is, but when you tried to help them forcefully fix it, it broke." He smiled sadly. "Sarah saw that, and hopefully found a way to give them a second chance someday."

The pain of his words dug deep. "I didn't mean it."

"No one ever does." Alucinor sighed. "But that never stopped it from occurring."

I rubbed at the tears in my eyes, but they continued to flow. "I'm sorry." I tried to hide my face in my arms, but he drew them away. Gently pulling me into his lap, I leaned my head on his shoulder, still crying, "I'm sorry."

Author's Note: The reviews are slow in coming! However, please don't get angry at my un-happy ending for Jareth and Sarah. It makes sense to me that they are like two magnets that keep repelling and attracting. Perhaps things didn't work out now, but who knows about later. This is the last chapter – epilogue to follow.